30 Day Anime Challenge – Day 4: Favourite Female Anime Character Ever

This post is part of The 30 Day Anime Challenge Series alongside the Cosmic Anvil Kickstarter campaign. Click here to read the introduction, and click here to check out and support the campaign to help us fund the printing and distribution of our first collected volume of our manga-inspired comic series, Age of Revolution.

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[SPOILER ALERT – There will be spoilers for certain shows in this post. Sorry!]

This one for me was a lot easier than picking a favourite male character! My favourite female anime character has got to be Mikasa Ackerman from Attack On Titan.

Mikasa during military training, Attack On Titan

You’ve got to admit it, she’s kinda of a bad ass. She proves herself to be one of the best Titan slayers and whilst also at the same time being compassionate and looking out for her best friends. And even [SPOILER ALERT] when Eren turns into a Titan she is completely fearless.

Honorable Mentions: Madoka (Puella Magi Madoka Magica), Sakura (Cardcaptor Sakura) and Asuna (for the first couple of episodes of Sword Art Online)

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This is an easy one for me as well. I’ve been a huge fan of the all-female manga manga/anime creator team CLAMP for the longest time. Their work includes Cardcaptor Sakura, Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles, xxxCholic, and they designed the characters of the super popular mech series Code Geass, to name but a few, and it is the former of those – Cardcaptor Sakura – that makes my favourite female anime character pick.

Sakura Kinomoto, Cardcaptor Sakura

With her cutsey outfits, doe-eyed innocence, and abundance of cheer, Sakura may look like just an ordinary harmless Japanese 10-year-old, but armed with her deck of magical Clow/Sakura cards, she becomes a formidable sorcerer over the course of the iconic series’ seventy episode and two movie run. I wrote an article recently for Bitch Flicks in which I realised that the strength of magical girls like Sakura comes from the fact that they break the flaws of the ‘strong female character’ stereotype by asserting their inner and outer power without ever surrendering their hyper-femininity to become more masculine in the process.

Sakura is also just impossible not to fall in love with. She’s passionate, loving, loyal, determined, and I love the fact that her true strength is rooted in absolute positivity – “Everything will be okay!” And with the current trend for anti-heroes and grittiness not showing any signs of subsiding any time soon, Sakura will always be a pleasant ray of sunshine to spend time with for me.

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I’m copying Hannah here as my favourite female is Cardcaptor Sakura as well. Hannah has already covered why I love Sakura: she’s funny, kind, her willpower is through the roof, and she’s nails to boot, all done wile keeping her femininity intact.

However, I will tell you why she is my favourite of all time. When I was around ten/eleven-years-old I asked for rollerblades for Christmas, and the sole reason for me wanting these was so that I could zip around my village just like Sakura. Now there are some epic ladies in anime (see my honorable mentions), but Sakura is the only one that I’ve wanted to be. Unfortunately for me I lived on a hill with uneven pavements, so my skills on the blades were pretty shocking, but I’ll never forget why I wanted them. Sakura is just plain cool, that’s why!

GO ON SAKURA!

Honorable Mentions: Nami (One Piece), Nico Robin (One Piece), Bulma (Dragon Ball/Z/GT), May (Pokemon), Aisha Clan-Clan (Outlaw Star).

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Written by The Cosmic Anvil team.

Check out our own Welsh-manga (or ‘Wanga’) series, AGE OF REVOLUTION on our official site and Comixology! AND if you want to join the fight to get the AGE OF REVOLUTION Volume printed check out our Kickstarter campaign!